As a fencer and occasional referee, I’d be remiss to not note Corlis Hicks, fencing coach at Rochester STEM Academy, winning an award as 2018-19 USA Fencing High School Coach of the Year. From USA Fencing:
Rochester STEM Academy isn’t where one might traditionally expect to find high school fencing.
The Minnesota high school is more than 1,000 miles away from the East Coast hotbeds of varsity fencing, but Coach Corlis Hicks (Dover, Minn.) has built a state championship team of her first-time fencers at the tuition-free public charter school that serves primarily immigrant, minority and underprivileged students.
In just five years’ time, her students have gone from knowing nothing about the sport of fencing and not knowing how to stand in en garde to the women’s épée team winning the state championship in the 2018-19 season – the school’s first state title in any athletic activity.
“They’re reading who had fourth place and who had third place and I’m staring at my girls and they’re standing there, they’re relaxed, they’re getting their pictures taken, and it dawned on me, ‘oh my gosh, we’ve won first place,’” Hicks said. “The shock on all their faces followed by glee and the pride in what we’ve done … the huge smiles of we’ve arrived, we’ve proved something. And they’ve proved it to themselves, to the community that supports us … so for them, this was a validation that all their work, all their practice time, that they can be successful. Our school for the longest time, and continues to, battle the perception that we are the last-chance place for Somali kids and that’s not true. There’s a lot more going on here.”
Congratulations to Hicks!
